Running Time: 63 mins
Year: 1993

synopsis

The World is Watching is a political film about the moral issues surrounding news gathering and newsmaking in the electronic age. Who decides what constitutes the news? How do they decide? How much of what we see and read is fact or fiction?

And what about the men and women who report from the field. Are foreign correspondents allowed to tell all that they see? Or is their first loyalty to their employers? Do they merely serve as mouth-pieces for an invisible editorial line?

The World is Watching examines these complex issues by focusing on several international journalists in Nicaragua as they cover the negotiations surrounding the Arias Peace Plan in November 1987. With unprecedented access to the inner workings of ABC News, what follows is a unique portrait of a news crew in the field, as it interacts with the editorial process in the newsroom in New York City.

The film features ABC TV’s Peter Jennings and John Quiones, as well as Newsweekphotographer Bill Gentile, The Boston Globe’s Randolph Ryan, Paris-based Liberationjournalist Edith Coron and British ITN TV News correspondent Jon Snow.

Credits

A film by Peter Raymont

Produced by Magnolia Movies and White Pine Pictures
in association with History Television Inc., Bravo!, Canal D, with the participation of the Canadian Television Fund
Created by the Government of Canada, and the Canadian Cable Industry, Telefilm Canada: Equity Investment Program CTF: Licence Fee Program, Rogers Cable Network Fund, Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit